That awkward first day we saw each other for the first time in 15 years, watching your beloved eldest daughter be married.

That following year’s visit, picking up the groom’s ashes from the funeral home.

All I wanted was for you to do right by the ones that need your love and deserve it.

I think you may finally be getting it. Going to your only granddaughter’s graduation gave me lots of hope for you.

I’m proud of you, Dad. You just may be that dad, great guy that I know you are, somewhere in the distant past.

My expectations are zero, now that I’ve truly forgiven him for ditching me for over a decade. I know it’s true because I wouldn’t ever want him gone again. Ever.

You’ve never been cruel to me. Only showed me kindness, love and struggled for my well-being. If my dad hadn’t been such a great guy to me, I would probably not have been able to know what one truly is.
Thanks for all that stuff.

I wasn’t really a good kid in high school. But I had the most monumental crush of my entire life, at that age, on my teacher. To get his attention, I stayed in school and graduated so he would be proud of me.

My niece is thankfully the opposite of me. She’s a winner and humanitarian wrapped in impeccable beauty, which I’ve never seen her use the way I would. She is astonishing to me. Our future on this earth looks bright.

I received this gift for a holiday that has every right to exclude me. But Dave has the greatest mother in the universe and she showers me in love and affection too:) Luckiest!! This is my mom holding me outside of our trailer in Oklahoma when I was a baby. My dad drilled for oil for Haliburton and she was a baby having babies. I don’t know how in the hell I got named Oriana? Me, my sister and Michelle and Janelle in Thomas, OK. I found these pics on my mom’s Facebook page from her old pal, Larry Ledbetter. As soon as I grabbed these images, I deleted the FB app from my phone and made (another) declaration to quit being so sneaky, nosy, petty and cowardly by using goddamn FB to spy on my mom. That complicated mess of an interface is SO unnecessary. My real bffs just text me our old dorky pictures before they post them anyway:)

This is my beginning to the oil painting that’s been my fate. Until this body perishes from our earth, I will joyously paint oil. I’m too in awe to articulate the feeling, it’s too soon, too new, too exhilarating to spread the paint and behold the richness of color. We are still in love. Nothing is finished and it is all spoken for.

The world was feeling flat and I found life on the planets Oil and Turpentine. I’m never going back to acrylic except for emergencies. Goodbye to that decade. Welcome life and motion, breathing and secrets kept behind cherished faces, taken to eternity. Even if everything gets ruined along the way, I shall brush all my artwork with love and oil.

I only graduated high school. But aced English and History, according to these red marks on my papers.

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I’m still an ignorant little fuck if I don’t go in search of more answers that don’t get graded.

This is the knowledge that has really added up.

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﻿I didn’t read any of these in school and I should have. It should have been the law to teach us this while we were young and maybe I could have been less of a douche face? ?

This is the book that started the fire inside of me that rages on still to incinerate that ignorance I’ve ignored for so long. Reading this book made me care. I even gave my copy to my 18year old niece so she can make a difference ﻿asap.

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I don’t really like being dumb. Or wrong. Both of them are too similar. But this book above, will awaken you. There’s no turning back to arrogance now. Also, the Malcom X autobiography is one of the Greatest Books in the whole written world. He is in that book and his life will affect you forever. Greatness never dies. Just people.